developing my "silver linings playbook"...

31 Oct, 2025

i wrote what follows in the immediate wake of the 2024 election... i knew i would need a coping strategy... this was it... i am pleased to report that i have acted on most of it... and it has helped... there is more that i can do... there is more i will do...

in the wake of the election, which is an unmitigated disaster from my point of view, i have decided that i need a coping/resistance strategy... i believe it necessary to ground myself in a vision of the world as i “wish to see it”… though i would have vastly preferred to be dealing with a Harris/Walz administration, i would still have needed this strategy, because as arguably better as they would have been, they still represent the business as usual that continues to destroy the planet… that we have a Trump/Vance administration means we are likely to have to resist the move to authoritarian government and its efforts to demoralize us and destroy our hope, on top of all the other festering problems…

so, i am developing my “Silver Linings Playbook”… if you are familiar with the movie or the book, you will know that a silver linings playbook is a strategy for coping with stress brought on by what you can’t, or struggle to control… we look for the silver lining in the storm clouds of any difficult situation…

i begin with a manifesto…

the fundamental problem in the world is western style patriarchal-corporate-capitalism (pcc)… the world view generated by pcc is one of endless resource exploitation of anything and everything… oppression and violence are its main tools… whether democrats or republicans lead the United States government is irrelevant… as long as pcc dominates the world view, the world is in trouble…

i commit to full presence to the current moment…

• i refuse to have my joy stolen from me…
• i refuse to be silenced…
• i refuse to loose faith in the capacity of people to be loving, kind and compassionate…
• i intend to “be the change i wish to see”...
• i believe in power with, not power over… i believe in community…

the strategies i am deploying…

i have developed a gratitude practice… in the morning of each new day i ask and answer two questions…

• what happened yesterday that i am grateful for?…
• what am i looking forward to today?..

having a gratitude practice has been documented by research as a mood and positive outlook booster… its effects can be profound… i began this practice shortly after the election and i am certain it has been helping me maintain a positive frame of mind since… i am also certain it has positively impacted people around me…

i have decided to watch little or no television news… i will read the news instead…¹

i believe that TV news presentation suffers from a need to attract viewers… the most effective way to do that is to show them a train wreck… through the lens of TV news, all the world is a train wreck and there are teams locked in mortal combat… this furthers the pcc agenda…

i have begun rereading a group of books that have inspired me to think differently about the moment we are in… this includes…

• Reclaiming the Sacred, Jeff Golden
• The Gift, Lewis Hyde
• Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Sacred Economics, Charles Eisenstein
• All About Love, bell hooks
• Feminist Theory: Margins to Center, bell hooks
• The Matter with Things, Iain McGilchrist
• Caliban and the Witch, Sylvia Federici
• Small Is Beautiful, E. F. Schumacher, especially the chapter/essay Buddhist Economics

these books together diagnose the problems we face, as well as provide me with a vision for resistance, change, and grounded happiness…

among the strategies and goals these books are helping me establish are…

• achieving a clear-eyed assessment of the ways in which i support pcc and the development of disengagement strategies
• developing a gift economy approach to exchange with my family, friends and community
• the above mentioned gratitude practice
• reconnection with the sacredness of the cosmos…
• being the change i want to see
• strengthening my community ties

about being the change i want to see…

immediately after the election i felt significant fear about my trans-feminine explorations, which i have been openly pursuing for more that a year… i believed i would have to tone it down… that the political climate would lead to the repression of my trans-feminine identity… i left my dresses, especially my midi and maxi dresses in the closet… i didn’t abandon feminine presentation altogether, but i was ratcheting it back… i imagined i would have to take my most feminine clothing and accessories to the clothing donation boxes…

then i realized… being the change i want to see begins with being my trans-feminine self… it is an expression of my opposition to the patriarchy… moreover, i am so much happier with myself as a trans-feminine presence… i cannot but believe that this increased happiness radiates out in all kinds of ways, making me more capable of kindness, love and compassion… it makes the space for me to ask the person at the checkout counter how their day has been, which more often than not, elicits a smile of appreciation and more than the standard “i’m fine” reply to “how are you”… it makes the space for me to thank them for helping me with my purchases… it makes it possible to shift the relationship i have with the people who provide service to me, moving from someone paid to provide this service to me (and therefore receptive of all the thanks they need through a paycheck) to a human being worthy of connection and kindness… this is a fundamental key to changing our relationships across patriarchy and capitalism…

about pursuing a gift economy…

another way of shifting relationships to the world that is towards the world we believe should be is to change the nature of our economic interaction with one another wherever possible… i have been reading Lewis Hyde's The Gift... in it, he talks about the difference between the relationships produced by commercial transactions and those produced in gift transactions… in a gift transaction, the relationship between giver and receiver is central... the gift transaction is intended to produce obligations that extend over time… commercial transactions end with the satisfactory exchange of the commodity for payment, even if, as in the previous paragraph, we engage in an exchange that expands the connection between server and served…

one of the ideas i have about being the change in transactions i want to see involves stones we have been collecting from the beaches of Block Island for as long as we have been going there… in a gift economy, i would consider the stones as gifts from the ocean… i would treat them as precious, even sacred objects, and i would understand that if i take them home and put them up on a shelf, or in a basket, i am stopping the gift and turning it into capital of a sort… in a fully completed gift cycle i would bring the stone home and enjoy it for some period of time, perhaps until the next time i visited the island, when i would return it to the ocean, giving thanks… or, i would move it forward… perhaps to someone i know who would treasure it as much as i do…

about strengthening my community ties

i want to, at minimum, have people i know and love over for food, drink and conversation… i am thinking monthly potluck suppers… i want to regularly attend community events others organize…

about disengaging with pcc…

i want, as much as possible, to disengage from capitalism,… materialism and commercialism… short of societal collapse, these isms won’t disappear in my lifetime, but i can behave in a way that doesn’t center them... instead i center the people i deal with and their happiness... i keep my engagement with it local as much as possible… i pursue a gift oriented economy as much as possible…

in dealing with difficult times, the important thing is to remain true to ourselves and true to what we believe in... to give ourselves a solid foundation in daily practice for being the resistance that creates new possibilities...